


Diplomatic Means

by Piinutbutter



Category: Original Work
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Accidental Marriage, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Possessive Behavior, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-04-05 21:40:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19048957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piinutbutter/pseuds/Piinutbutter
Summary: The Shilii are an extraterrestrial species old, powerful, and wise beyond human comprehension. Most people, when looking upon the nigh-incomprehensible might of the Shilii’s king, find themselves thinking about their small, fleeting, and ultimately meaningless place within the universe.Captain Zhang Jinsheng, who is not most people, finds himself thinking about how - one way or another - he’s going to tap that.





	Diplomatic Means

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dark_Labyrinth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Labyrinth/gifts).



A strong elbow jabbed at Jinsheng’s ribs. It was followed by a hissed whisper of, “Stop staring. Don’t be rude.”

Jinsheng cast a brief glare over at his co-pilot and primary navigator. “I’m not being rude. I just don’t know where to look.”

A resonant hiss, like air being blown through a tunnel, preceded the voice that filled the room next. “We take no offense to your leader’s confusion. We do not ‘see’ in the warm-body sense. Thus, we pay no mind to what guests care to ‘look’ at.”

Jinsheng gave his co-pilot a _told you so_ smile. She rolled her eyes.

It was true, though, that he had no idea where to direct his gaze as they stood around in an alien waiting room. The Shilii weren’t exactly humanoid - or “warm-bodied,” as they called it. To these aliens, whose existence was so vastly different from most of the galaxy’s creatures, anything that had a compact, moving body was a warm-body. Moths were warm-bodies. Dogs were warm-bodies. Humans were warm-bodies.

The Shilii were...Jinsheng didn’t even know how to describe it. From what he’d gathered before landing here, they were a colony of living biomes who communicated with each other telepathically. The capital of Shilii society was a cluster of dark, mossy caves, connected by hundreds of tunnels. As Jinsheng understood it, at this moment he and his crew were standing _inside_ a Shilii’s body. It seemed a little invasive to him, but hey, the cave hadn’t protested yet.

The blurb on the encyclopedia page he’d studied the night before described the diplomatic activities of the Shilii as follows: _No exact estimate can be given of the Shilii species’ age. This isolated and highly advanced species has existed since long before the majority of the universe bore living organisms. For millennia, this unique populace went undiscovered by outside species. Due to their uncommon appearance, and their reliance on telepathic communication, it was only within the last century that the Shilii were definitively determined to be sentient fauna rather than flora._

Looking around the cave, Jinsheng could understand the confusion. The walls were crisscrossed with hundreds of thick, smooth vines that shifted over each other slowly enough that it could easily be dismissed as a trick of the (incredibly dim) light. The thing that had freaked him out at first was the floor he was standing on. The soft, spongy moss beneath his feet shifted in slow, roiling waves. The waves came just slowly enough to be difficult to predict, but just fast enough throw him off balance if he wasn’t careful.

That tricky moss was exactly how, upon finally being allowed to enter the chamber of the renowned Shilii king, Jinsheng found himself stumbling and falling forward onto his hands and knees.

Cool. It was cool. He could make this work.

Jinsheng turned the gesture into a formal and extra-humble bow, lowering his forehead to the ground. (With his face this close to it, Jinsheng noted with surprise that the moss smelled vaguely sweet.)

“Great and honorable king Lassan,” Jinsheng announced, maybe a little more dramatically than necessary, “My name is Zhang Jinsheng. I am the owner and captain of the starship Huoyi. On behalf of myself, my ship and her crew, and the whole of the human race, I’d like to extend our greetings and friendship. I’m sure this cooperation between our species will be peaceful and fruitful.”

Jinsheng raised his head and gave the vast, incomprehensible plant mass before him a smile. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his co-pilot covering her face with her palm in embarrassment. “You’re _killing_ me here, man,” she whispered.

When the king spoke, his voice resonated through Jinsheng’s entire body. It was far more solid than the echoing, breathy voices of the Shilii Jinsheng had interacted with on his way to the royal chamber. “I am aware of your identity, Captain Zhang.”

Jinsheng blinked. Okay...?

“But the polite greeting is appreciated.”

Jinsheng gave his co-pilot a grin. She gave him a blink-and-he’d-miss-it roll of her eyes, then stepped forward and gave the king a deep bow of her own. She had enough dignity to stay on her feet, however.

“Greetings, king Lassan. I, too, offer peace and goodwill towards you and your kin. I am Guo Lin, co-pilot and primary navigator of the Huoyi. It is an honor to meet you and experience your lovely home.”

“I am aware of the loveliness of my home. But the polite greeting is, once again, appreciated.”

Jinsheng made a mental note to write a letter to the editor of the Abridged Encyclopedia of Pan-Galactic Cultures. The Shilii section needed to include a warning that they were apparently a bunch of smartasses.

With the formalities out of the way, Jinsheng stood back up and brushed the moss off his knees. “King Lassan. With all that you are aware of so far, I’m sure you know the reason we’ve landed our ship here.”

“I am,” the alien responded. “And we Shilii are content to offer refuge to you and yours in this time of crisis, provided you comply with our conditions.”

Jinsheng’s shoulders tensed. This was the part he hated. There were always conditions. While he prided himself on being a skilled diplomat - thanks in no small part to the unorthodox methods he had no qualms about employing - there had been several incidents where he just couldn’t fulfill his would-be allies’ unreasonable demands. He was reeeally hoping that wouldn’t be the case this time. They needed to lay low here for a while; the safety of his crew depended on it. He had no trouble putting himself in danger. He’d be a shitty captain if he willingly put the rest of his crew in danger.

“Of course,” Jinsheng said. “Tell us your conditions and we will fulfill them to the best of our abilities.”

“While in Shilii land, you will respect us, our home, and our culture. You will not harm, destroy, or steal.”

The cave was silent for a few moments as both humans waited for the other shoe to drop. Lin spoke up first.

“That’s it?” she asked. Stole the words right out of Jinsheng’s mouth. That wasn’t asking for much at all.

“And you will defer to my leadership on matters of importance that involve both our species,” Lassan conceded.

“You have a deal,” Jinsheng said, the knots in his shoulders untangling as relief washed over him. This would be a piece of cake.

“Thank you, your highness,” Lin said, her voice equally light with excitement. She extended her hand into the air, waiting to seal the agreement with a handshake. Half a second later, she realized her mistake and quickly lowered her hand to her side.

Jinsheng elbowed her with a needling smile. “Don’t be rude.”

 

* * *

 

“Captain Zhang. I have a question for you to answer.”

Jinsheng jolted in his chair. He was chowing down on a freeze-dried meal in his ship’s rec room. The Shilii didn’t have much in the way of human amenities in their, er, bodies, so everyone stopped by the docked Huoyi at least a few times a day. Their ship was parked well outside of the cave cluster that marked the capital, and he was nowhere near Lassan right now. But that was definitely the alien king’s voice.

“You are startled to hear from me,” Lassan observed.

Thanks, King Obvious.

“Have you forgotten the way we Shilii communicate?” the alien continued.

“No,” Jinsheng said. “I just didn’t know your, uh, range reached this far.” He paused. “Wait, can you hear me now? I’m talking out loud. Can’t say telepathy courses were offered at my university.”

For all Lassan’s omniscience, he didn’t seem to know much about sarcasm. “I can hear you. So you are able to answer my question.”

“Uh. Sure, I guess. So what is this question?”

“How did you manage to incur the wrath of nigh every last bounty faction in the Southern galactic hemisphere? I have previously provided shelter to travelers who have found themselves the target of one or two of these factions. Your ship is the first to be hiding from seven. Simultaneously.”

So the king wasn’t so omniscient after all. “Yeah,” Jinsheng said. “About that. You’ve heard of P2S2, right?”

“Providence Private Special Services is an established faction of bounty hunters, operating primarily in the galactic Southwest. They currently operate under the leadership of a human named Kieran McBride.”

Jinsheng snorted. “’Established’ is one way to put it. McBride’s lined the pockets of basically every other hunting faction around, with the understanding that they’ll scratch his back and leave the most profitable marks to him and his team. You name a bounty hunter, they’re indebted to that bastard in some way. So if, say, McBride were to send out a demand for the capture of someone he was really pissed off at...”

“The factions in his debt would join him in the search,” Lassan finished.

“Exactly.”

Jinsheng had a fleeting hope that Lassan would end the conversation there. No dice.

“Then, what did your crew do to earn this man’s ire?”

“It wasn’t my crew, let me make that clear. It was me.” Jinsheng rubbed the back of his neck, staring out one of the port windows at the shadowy jungle landscape that started up where the caves ended. “We had a few dealings with P2S2 while we were planetside and getting the Huoyi repaired. She’d broken down in a region I now know is nicknamed the ‘Pirate’s Den.’ I was tired of wondering when my crew was going to be attacked that night, and the hunters seemed like good protection. And, I mean, they were! They made a fine security detail, I’ll give them that. But their services were way outside of our team’s budget. So. I, uh. May have made McBride a couple promises I didn’t end up keeping.”

Lassan was silent for a moment that lasted just long enough for Jinsheng to hope he’d drop the subject.

“I must say, Captain Zhang, hearing this does not give me confidence that you will comply with the terms of our small treaty. If you recall, ‘no stealing’ was among the clauses.”

“I paid him most of the money!” Jinsheng protested. “Like. Eighty percent of it.”

“And what of the other twenty percent?”

“I offered an...alternate method of compensation.” Jinsheng was not an easily embarrassed man. He still cringed a little as he recalled how shamelessly he’d straddled the bounty hunter’s lap and wrapped his arms around his neck, promising he’d make _sure_ McBride wouldn’t leave their transaction unsatisfied.

...And then he’d promptly chickened out and ditched the planet the next morning, standing up their arranged romp at a local hotel. He hadn’t felt bad about it until it became clear that: 1. McBride was more than a little upset about being blue-balled. 2. He’d just put his whole crew in the line of fire because of his own ill-thought-out plans.

For once, the earful Lin gave him was totally justified.

“Is this a regular habit of yours?” Lassan asked. “Offering men sex as payment and not following through?”

Jinsheng rested his feet on the rec room table. Which was definitely against ship rules, but rules on his ship were more like suggestions unless they directly affected the safety of the Huoyi and those on it.

“The first part of that sentence, yes. It works, okay? The second part, no. This was the first time I went back on my word. What can I say? The guy is really damn threatening. I just wasn’t about to get myself tangled up in that mess.”

As soon as he’d finished speaking, something occurred to Jinsheng.

“Wait. I’m impressed you realized I was implying sex. That’s more of a human...er, warm-body thing, isn’t it?” The encyclopedia had glossed over the matter of Shilii shagging, stating that ‘not much is currently known about the reproductive behavior of this unique species.’ But Jinsheng couldn’t imagine it resembled anything other than the slow, boring process of pollinating flowers or spreading seeds. They were a bunch of plants. Very smart plants, but the point stood.

“You would be surprised, Captain. We take our pleasures here and there, the same as you. Many of our warm-bodied visitors have opted to partake in them. I am told they left satisfied.”

“Huh.” Jinsheng tried to think of something else to say. He failed. So he said it again. “Huh.”

Lassan left him alone after that. Not like Jinsheng would have been a good conversation partner, anyway. He was far too busy imagining - in thorough, vivid detail - how sex with a giant alien plant thingy would work. Eventually he took the imagining from the rec room to his bunk.

 

* * *

 

After a few quiet days of laying low and helping his crew get adjusted to life among the caves, Jinsheng couldn’t take it anymore. When it came to matters that fascinated him, his curiosity was strong and his self-control weak. So one afternoon, he drank enough to get a slight buzz, made sure he wouldn’t be needed for a couple hours, and marched down to Lassan’s central chamber.

Forgoing any sort of preamble, Jinsheng greeted him with, “Good evening, your highness. Would you like to have sex with me?”

Lassan’s responding silence lasted just long enough to be uncomfortable. Jinsheng shifted on his feet, balancing himself on the goddamn annoying moss. “Okay,” he elaborated, “Maybe that was a bit forward. I was just thinking it’d be a gesture of goodwill! To show that I won’t, you know, promise you something and then not deliver. Since you sounded like you were kind of worried about that. Plus, when you were talking about your species sex with humans, it sort of sounded like you were only relaying secondhand experiences. So I thought, you know, I could give you-”

The king interrupted his rambling with one word: “Yes.”

It took a second for Jinsheng’s brain to recognize what Lassan was responding to in the affirmative. “Oh. You’re serious?”

“Your reasoning is sound,” Lassan said. “Besides, I admit that I’ve been curious about the way a warm body reacts to the attentions of one as powerful as myself.”

Jinsheng grinned, not too deterred by the implication that Lassan’s ‘power’ might be too much for him. He liked a challenge in bed, so long as he’d agreed to it ahead of time. “Well, let’s sate your curiosity, shall we?”

As it turned out, Lassan was decidedly not exaggerating his power. Jinsheng’s night was a messy whirlwind of vines that had no right to be as dexterous as they were, combined with an equally unnerving and arousing tendency for Lassan to push sensations into Jinsheng’s mind via his telepathy. It was terrifying and inhuman, and Jinsheng had never come so hard in his life.

When Jinsheng shuffled into the lounge well into the afternoon, groggy and walking with a limp that was impossible to hide, Lin gave him a raised eyebrow and a smile. “Looks like someone had a long night of diplomatic negotiations.”

 

* * *

 

A week into their stay, everything was going well. The Shilii were generous hosts, his crew were enjoying the unexpected time off, and Jinsheng had screwed his first not-even-close-to-humanoid alien.

So of course something had to fuck it up.

“Wake up, Captain Zhang. There is an emergency.”

Jinsheng would have known that even without Lassan’s calm telepathic announcement. He could hear thundering footsteps and colorful multilingual swearing from the hallway.

“What’s happening?” Jinsheng asked, literally jumping out of bed.

Lassan gave him the rundown while he pulled his gear on with quick, practiced movements.

“The bounty hunting factions pursuing you have apparently found out we were sheltering you. Providence Private Special Services demanded we give you up to them. When I refused, their leader initiated an attack on the capital. There was a second faction ship along with them, and we were able to deflect both advances; but unbeknownst to us, a third faction had infiltrated the jungle Shilii that lay to the north. They possess some sort of shielding device that makes it near impossible for us to detect them. The capital is in havoc, and we need your crew’s help to root them out of our caves.”

“Shit. Are they hurting you guys? Or just threatening to?”

“Many report that parts of them are being severed, battered, or burned. I have not suffered that yet, but I imagine it is only a matter of time.”

“ _Shit._ Okay, let me handle this. I’ll check in with my team, but I have a feeling if I show myself, they’ll turn the focus to me and leave you alone.”

“Good idea. I will aid you and yours as best I can.”

Lassan had said it best - it was havoc inside the cave network that made up the Shilii capital. The Huoyi’s tech, Stephane, had figured out why the Shilii were having so much trouble seeing the bounty hunters moving through their tunnels: As one of their own had put it, the aliens didn’t _see_. They only heard and felt. Whatever overpriced cutting-edge cloaking device McBride had no doubt bought for his ambush crew, it muffled the sounds of their movements to practically nothing. And with Shilii ‘bodies’ being so large, by the time one of them narrowed down the sensation of footsteps passing through them, it was too late to do much about it.

It was surreal, seeing a human rushing towards Jinsheng, carrying heavy weaponry, yet making absolutely no sound as they pulled him into a scuffle. His plan of putting himself in the line of fire had worked, however. Lin and Lassan kept a running commentary in his earpiece and his head, respectively, and both of them reported that the hunters were abandoning their harassment of the Shilii to focus on his capture.

Of course, that led to the big question in his plan: How was he going to deal with a whole crew of armed, trained, and highly dangerous bounty hunters on his own?

Although he hadn’t told anyone, he wasn’t planning to. His guilt had come to a boiling point, seeing the hunters so casually destroy parts of a peaceful alien species who’d gone untouched for so many millennia. It was his fault; and he was going to take responsibility for it. If it meant getting himself captured, tortured, and maybe worse? So be it.

The Shilii’s revered leader had different plans.

“Navigator Guo,” Lassan said, because apparently he could just hop onto their comm network at will, the bastard. “Is Captain Zhang close to me?”

Staccato clicking as Lin consulted her live maps. “Yes, close enough. He’d need to turn around and cut through the waterway on his left, but no one’s staked out in there now.”

“Come to my central chamber, Captain,” Lassan said.

Jinsheng slid to a halt, his heels squelching on the moss-covered rocks. “Sir yes sir.”

Jinsheng muttered apologies to whatever Shilii he was trampling as he navigated through the dark, cramped waterway. He took little care to be silent; the enemy already knew where he was, and most likely where he was going. This tunnel only went one way. When he exited the mouth of the waterway and practically fell down the steep hill that dumped him at the back of Lassan’s biggest cavern, he counted thirteen hunters waiting for him, weapons at the ready.

The Shilii were powerful in their age and wisdom, but they were still peaceful plants at their core. Jinsheng found himself wanting to protect Lassan, no matter how physically impossible that was.

“Might as well stop running, captain,” one of the hunters called to him. With the disdain she put on the word ‘captain,’ Jinsheng could tell it was meant to be lowercase. “Come with us peacefully and we’ll leave the aliens alone.”

Before Jinsheng could do just that, Lassan spoke in his mind. “There is a pillar of rock between you and your adversaries. Put your hand on it and aim your weapon at the hunters.”

Jinsheng knew better than to ask questions. He took a few slow steps forward towards the pillar, raising his hands in surrender. Just as a handful of the hunters moved in on him, he shot one hand out to the pillar at his side, while the other one raised his trusty plasma-powered shotgun.

Lassan did...something. Harsh, painful energy flowed through Jinsheng’s arm, stopping his heart for a moment as the shock passed through his chest and into the arm holding the gun. Then there was a flash, a boom, and a kickback strong enough to dislocate Jinsheng’s shoulder and knock him to the ground.

When Jinsheng’s eyes recovered from the searing bright light, he looked around and realized that he was the only one left in the cavern. The other humans had been reduced to tiny piles of ash.

“Damn,” he whispered.

“Um. Yeah, same,” Lin said over the comm. “We’ll handle the stragglers. You go-”

Whatever her initial order had been, it changed when Jinsheng tried to move his arm and made a very un-manly whimper.

“...you go get that arm looked at.”

 

* * *

 

Jinsheng had suffered far worse injuries than a dislocated shoulder, but the medic insisted he stay on bed rest for at least two days. His body had taken a big shock, and complications could show themselves at any time. This meant he was bored as hell, and quickly grew to rely on the visits of his friends to bring some sort of entertainment. Oddly, Lassan hadn’t contacted him once since the attack was over.

The rest of the bounty hunters had buggered off after seeing their allies vaporized. But before they left, McBride’s gang left a parting ‘fuck you’ gift in the form of firing a laser cannon straight into the starboard hull of the Huoyi. It didn’t break the whole ship, but it wasn’t going to fly for long (without exploding) unless they took the time to do some thorough repairs.

Lin knocked at his door on the second morning. When Jinsheng called for her to come in, she didn’t waste time with small talk. “You...have visitors?” she said.

He blinked. “Okay. Why was that a question?”

“Not our guys. A bunch of Shilii are hitting me up, telling me to congratulate you on your ‘engagement.’”

“...my what?”

“That’s my line. Did you do something else stupid when I wasn’t looking?”

“Not this time.”

“You are unaware of the commitment you made?”

When Lin’s head raised at the same time Jinsheng’s did, he realized that a Shilii was speaking to both of them at once. He recognized the voice; Lassan’s assistant who had welcomed them upon their arrival.

“Our king lent you his power to protect you. It is not a gesture taken lightly. Such an act drains a Shilii of part of themselves, giving it wholly to another. If the other - in this case, you, Captain Zhang - accepts the gift, they form a bond both mental and emotional.”

Jinsheng stared at the wall, then at Lin, then at the wall. “You’re telling me Lassan sprung a surprise proposal on me?”

“You accepted it,” the assistant repeated. “Do you regret your decision? It is possible for the bond to be severed, but it will require many weeks of intensive treatment, and-”

“No, I...” Jinsheng was surprised to find himself interjecting. “I don’t...I don’t think I actually _mind_. I just wish I’d known ahead of time.” Something else occurred to him. “Hey. If we’re married now, why has Lassan totally ghosted his new husband? I haven’t heard from him since the, uh, engagement.”

“We send our apologies if you feel neglected. The king has been recovering from the act of sharing himself with you. It is a painful process. Younger, lesser Shilii have died in the attempt.”

“Yikes,” Lin said. “Well, I guess we’ll...talk to him later. Right?” She looked over to Jinsheng.

“Right. Tell him we said to get well soon.”

“I shall, when he is sensate once more. Before I leave you, I must give our deepest thanks for assisting us in the ambush. We were not prepared, and that brings deep shame upon us.”

Jinsheng waved the hand that didn’t hurt to move. “You wouldn’t have had to deal with them if we hadn’t come here. We should be the ones thanking you.”

The Shilii said nothing after that. Neither did he or Lin. After a minute of silence, Lin shook her head.

“I know I should have said something polite and diplomatic. But I can’t get over the fact that you got married to a tree.”

Despite the suddenness of the situation, Jinsheng cracked a smile. “And he was the one who proposed to me! I guess the sex was just too mind-blowing for him to let me go.”

“File that under ‘things I didn’t need to know,’ man.”

 

* * *

 

Married life was, surprisingly, not that different from the single life Jinsheng had led for...well, basically forever. The life of a relatively young starship captain had left little time for long-term romantic connections.

Lassan seemed perfectly fine to let Jinsheng go about his usual business, rarely doing much more than popping into his head to make a comment every once and a while. Sometimes helpful. Sometimes annoying. Mister Omniscience didn’t know as much about intensive manual ship repairs as he liked to think.

Jinsheng would visit Lassan’s chamber every other night (and sometimes during the day, when he was bored). While these visits were for “marital bonding,” no one had given Jinsheng an explanation of what “marital bonding” entailed. He was happy to make up his own interpretation, and Lassan was happy to go along with it in all his tentacle-filled enthusiasm.

Sex with the king was even more of an intense experience now that the bond was there. Not only did Jinsheng feel his own pleasure, he felt _Lassan_ feeling his pleasure, creating a feedback loop that left him an incoherent, overstimulated mess. Lassan commented more than once that Jinsheng was much more attractive when he was too fucked-out to make snarky comments. Jinsheng would have proved him wrong, but nothing could come out of his mouth besides exhausted moans. He did manage to give the alien the world’s laziest middle finger.

The rest of the Huoyi’s crew were in pretty good spirits, too. The Shilii were a fairly good-case scenario as far as being stranded on an alien planet went. While nobody else went and got hitched, Jinsheng gathered that quite a few of the crew members had struck up friendly relationships with some of the aliens. Jinsheng didn’t pry about how many of those were actual friendly relationships, or wink-wink-nudge “friendly relationships.”

After all, who was he to judge?

Lassan only laid down one rule for his new husband: They had to be exclusive.

“I know you enjoy promising other humans sex in exchange for favors.”

“Geez. Make me sound like an intergalactic hooker, why don’t you?”

“You yourself admitted this proclivity to me.”

This was not an argument Jinsheng was going to win.

“Okay, okay. I get it. No more fucking around. Figuratively and literally.”

“Yes, that is my wish. I know that warm-body marriage customs differ, and it may be tradition in your families to take multiple sexual partners while still bonded. But you are in a Shilii marriage. We do not do this.”

“Gotcha. Pinky promise.”

Jinsheng considered it emotional progress when, instead of pointing out his lack of fingers, Lassan extended a small vine to wrap around Jinsheng’s extended pinky.

Being a married man didn’t ruin Jinsheng’s social life, either. The Huoyi’s crew was small and tight-knit. He and Lin had grown up in the same small town, got separated by different secondary schools, and then landed at the same piloting academy half the country away. Most of the crew came from the group of friends they’d made while at the academy - including the guy who’d failed his courses miserably, but made an _excellent_ cleaner. Stephane was one of the few exceptions.

Jinsheng had met Stephane in a bar on a planet that Lin had once poetically described as an “impressively urban shithole.” Stephane had been drowning his sorrows in alcohol. Apparently lamenting his poor lot in life to the total stranger who sat down next to him wasn’t frowned upon in this neck of the woods. Stephane, Jinsheng gathered through his mostly-coherent ramblings, was one of many IT guys and girls on a large, commercial, franchised starship. By the end of the night, Jinsheng had to agree; Stephane’s manager _was_ an unreasonable bitch who was squandering his talent and potential. So he did the natural thing and offered the guy a job on his own ship.

Sure, maybe he’d been a little drunk too at the time. For all the teasing Jinsheng got about picking up stray drunks, Stephane did turn out to be a skilled and hard-working tech. He was the only foreigner in the crew, but he didn’t seem to mind, even when some clash in cultural etiquette reared its head at an awkward time. He was happy to make friends on the ship, and Jinsheng was happy to return the effort. He was probably Jinsheng’s closest friend by now, second only to Lin.

So when Stephane invited him out to a day of relaxing in a “super cool looking” hot spring near the Shilii caves, Jinsheng was there with a towel and sunglasses first thing in the afternoon. Stephane was already soaking in the (admittedly cool looking) bright teal water, so Jinsheng stripped down and joined him.

Almost immediately, Stephane scooted close to him, prodding about the salacious details of his interspecies romance with an eager smile. “So which one of you is the man in the relationship, and which one is the giant plant monster?”

Jinsheng splashed him, but he was smiling too. “Lassan’s not a monster. At least, not until you get him going in bed...”

“ _Do_ tell.”

They spent nearly an hour in water that never seemed to get too hot or too cold, chatting and gossiping like teens at a sleepover. If the sleepover required you to be in water. And naked.

Stephane was the first to leave, citing his tragically pruny skin. He left Jinsheng with a “tell the hubby I said hi, okay?” and a kiss on the cheek. When he first joined the crew, it had taken a hot minute to adjust to Stephane’s habit of kissing basically everyone he was friends with. But he was quick to clarify that it meant nothing more than a friendly gesture of intimacy. Jinsheng barely even noticed it now.

Reluctantly drying off and returning to the world of ‘actually getting things done,’ Jinsheng worked well into the evening, until he collapsed into his bunk at the hour of fuck-this-o-’clock.

 

* * *

 

Jinsheng’s brief blissful bout of sleep was disrupted by a low rumbling sensation that started at the back of his spine and crawled up to the top of his head.

“Lassan?” he muttered, because it was either the alien king trying to get a hold of him or a serious medical issue, and he was hoping for the former.

“I need to speak with you.” Lassan’s voice was more brusque than usual as it bounced around between his ears. Jinsheng rolled over, adjusted his pillow until his cheek found a cool spot, and sighed.

“Do you have any idea how late it is, your highness?”

“Time is irrelevant to me. You are capable of speaking with me now. Thus, you will speak with me now.”

“Pushy. Okay, fine. I’m listening. Talk to me.”

“This is not a matter we will discuss remotely. Come to my central chamber.”

Jinsheng pushed himself up on his elbows. If it was that serious, they probably had a military or political issue on their hands. He could send Lin to deal with it, but...no. He was alien-law-married to the Shilii king now. The least he could do was meet with the guy himself.

Even if it was criminally late at night. Or early in the morning, really.

The moment he stepped within Lassan’s reach, Jinsheng found himself ambushed. A vine cracked against his ankle like a whip, wrapping around it and tugging him off his feet. He fell on his ass with a grunt, scrambling for his gun. Before he could get a hold of it, half a dozen more vines joined their friend and locked themselves onto various parts of Jinsheng’s body. Once they had a tight hold of him, he was promptly yanked into Lassan’s central chamber.

“A little help here?!” Jinsheng yelled, struggling against his restraints. Lassan must have mistaken him for an intruder of some kind. All-knowing his ass.

“No,” Lassan said mildly. “I would like you to remain here while we discuss your transgressions against me.”

That...was not the response he’d been expecting. “Transgressions?” Jinsheng kicked at a vine that was digging into his shin with a bit too much force. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I concede that in your home culture, the customs surrounding bonds may very well be different from our own. But you are among the Shilii, and have entered into a Shilii bond, and we do not take kindly to our bondmates sharing themselves freely with those outside of their bond. Humans, I believe, would call it ‘cheating.’ I will not accept you cheating me, Captain.”

“What the hell are you...” Jinsheng trailed off as it clicked: Stephane. Lassan didn’t know that they were just friends. “Is this about the crew member I was with yesterday?”

“Yes.”

Jinsheng sighed in relief, already preparing an explanation to clear things up. Before he could open his mouth, Lassan’s vines shifted, moving and tightening on his body in a way that made his mind go blank for a moment.

In a voice that rumbled through Jinsheng’s limbs, Lassan said, “Need I remind you who you belong to?”

Oh. Oh, shit. That was kind of really hot, in a scary way. A plan began to take shape in Jinsheng’s head.

“Maybe you do,” he said with a grin. “Stephane and I go way back. He’s always had the hots for me; then again, who hasn’t? Half the people I meet want me. I’m not sure if I should tell you what percentage of those people I’ve actually indulged. The number might make you jealous.”

As he spoke, he felt Lassan’s presence growing warmer and warmer in his body. It was on the cusp of painful, now; like a shower that was a few degrees too hot. But just like a slightly-too-hot shower, after a few moments Jinsheng got used to the sensation. So this was what a jealous, possessive Shilii felt like. Sweet.

“You are deliberately provoking me,” Lassan pointed out.

“Hell yeah I am.”

A gust of cool air swirled throughout the chamber. It brought goosebumps to Jinsheng’s skin, clashing against the burning heat of Lassan’s presence beneath it.

“Humans have odd ways of expressing their desires.”

Jinsheng’s smile showed teeth. “Yeah, we do.”

“You are a vexing man,” Lassan said.

“I sure am. So are you gonna show me who I belong to or not?”

If ‘gust of wind’ was the Shilii equivalent of a sigh, Jinsheng could only assume the small, tickling buzz that danced past his ears was Lassan’s version of rolling his nonexistent eyes.

“If that is what you wish,” the king said. “It was intended to be an empty threat. I merely wished to coerce an apology out of you.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not sorry. So get on with the next step of the coercion.”

“You realize that I could kill you for your impudence without a second thought.”

“Yeah. But you’re not gonna.”

Rather than responding to that, Lassan finally got to the action.

It felt much like the last time; Lassan’s consciousness pushing its way into his, the king making himself at home in his body despite not having one of his own. But it went further, this time. The first difference came when Jinsheng felt something clutching against his nerves from the inside, sending a thrum of sensation through every one of Jinsheng’s limbs.

“Damn,” he muttered, trying to curl in against whatever had caused the feeling. But Lassan’s vines held his physical body still, and inside his mind, Lassan chided him for his impatience.

“You are a Shilii mate now. We are not like humans. We have millennia to take our pleasures.”

Jinsheng let out a harsh breath as Lassan warmed him from the inside, starting in his core and slowly sending a tingling heat to the tips of his fingers. “I’m into a little delay and denial, but not a whole millennium of it. You’re gonna have to meet me in the middle, _husband_.”

Lassan didn’t respond to that either. The heat that had built in his stomach was boiling now, just on the edge of too much pain. Right as Jinsheng was about to complain, the heat was wiped away, replaced by a freezing chill that sent a confused shudder through him.

“I didn’t know you were into temperature play, your highness,” he panted. “A little vanilla, but I like it.”

“Must you comment on every action I take?” Lassan said.

“Yep. Unless you make me shut up, which-”

Jinsheng had a whole second part of that sentence planned out, but it didn’t make its way out of his vocal cords. He moved his lips, teeth, and tongue to make the syllables, but no sound came out.

 _Okay,_ he thought as hard as he could in lieu of speaking out loud. _Now_ that _is kinky._

“It is better this way,” Lassan said. “This way the others will not hear you during our intimacy. Your enjoyment should be mine alone.”

Whew. Jinsheng was suddenly very, very grateful for Stephane’s clinginess. He’d have to thank the guy tomorrow.

In a way, it was good Lassan had gagged him so thoroughly. The next thing the king did to his body felt like someone was touching all of his sensitive spots at once, and it wrung what would have been an embarrassing moan out of him. As it was, he just let out a particularly emphatic breath.

“I should tell you this: While I have had many temporary Shilii partners over my many years, never once had I considered marriage to one of them. You are the first warm-body I have taken, and now-”

 _You’re stuck with me,_ Jinsheng thought.

“Precisely,” Lassan said.

Wait.

_You can hear me? In my head?_

“Of course. The bond works both ways.”

That had a lot of implications, both personal and professional. But at the moment, all Jinsheng could do was grin and point out, _So you can’t really gag me. I can annoy you all I want._

Lassan gave another probably-sigh. Jinsheng was pretty sure he felt fondness in it. “Not if I render you incoherent with pleasure at every chance I get.”

_I’d love nothing more, your highness._


End file.
